BludgerTrack: 53.1-46.9 to Labor

The weekly poll aggregate finds the latest Newspoll result checking the Coalition’s modest poll recovery, and drives Tony Abbott’s personal ratings to a new low.

The Coalition’s mildly improving polling trend over the past few weeks has taken a knock after the latest bad result from Newspoll, contributing to a 0.5% two-party shift in Labor’s favour on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. On the state-level seat projection, the big move this week is a three-seat shift to Labor in Queensland, where the Labor swing had probably been a bit undercooked on recent readings, along with one-seat gains in New South Wales and Western Australia. However, Labor is down a seat in Victoria after a blowout in their favour last week and also down one in Tasmania, resulting in a net gain of three. Newspoll also provided a new set of leadership ratings this week, which have pushed Tony Abbott out to his worst net personal approval rating since the election. Other figures on voting intention were provided this week by Essential Research, ReachTEL and Morgan. Full results as always on the sidebar.

I am not in a position to comment in detail other than to say that the views you are putting about elected reps, their mission statements, criminal offences associated with their voting, loyalty to electorate as first priority, etc etc to be a load of unmitigated crap.

I have no idea where you are both “coming from” and rate your last few posts as the worst nonsense I have read.

Usually you both post more or less sensible comments here, IMHO, but not these ones.

I’ve been a local councillor too and the ‘extra knowledge’ although you do get access to the kind of stuff is largely just ‘inside the game’ rubbish – all the horse trading. But there are times when the local squeaky wheels just get it all wrong.

For Labor policy comes from The Conferences. National for Federal Labor.

Labor has the strictest official way of operating. That is policy formed at Conference and t to implement the policy but free to do it in their way.

At least that is how it is supposed to work from my outside point of view. Its when those policies are not pursued with rigor or opposed that Labor comes acropper with the no values not standing for anything run by the warlords etc.

Though NC does have that union dominance of voting perception problem too. Note perception.

I have less idea of the Greens and Liberals which is to Labor’s credit of its openness.

Zoomster: A few cranky NSW members does not a ‘schism’ make.
No-one is frothing at the mouth quite as much as the media over this issue. Price signals won’t change behaviour unless you provide an alternative. That’s why the carbon price design focussed as much on funding new renewable energy as it did punishing economy-destroying pollution. Greens understand this principle, it’s part of our ethos as a party to provide better alternatives. All Green senators understand that, especially Christine Milne who designed the clean energy package with that in mind.

In fact, this story doesn’t seem to understand the difference between party policy and party room initiatives. The membership, quite intentionally, voted to give their MPs a certain amount of discretion in how they implement party policy. Sometimes implementing half a policy is worse than nothing – like buying trains without building a railway or starting a national ICAC but preventing it from investigating.

My slogan for today is : Lay off Lambie. Anyone who can pick Tone as a sociopath starts well ahead of the game as far as I’m concerned. I sense she is also going to be a huge thorn in Clive’s ample side.

I suspect there are few workings of government that need to be kept secret, but telling people to go without secrets is like telling people to go nude. There is too much behaviour built up around existing secrets. It requires a huge adjustment.

I’m curious what evidence there is for this, or if it’s just taken as being obvious.

People are inventive, innovative creatures. If there isn’t an alternative, one will be found or created. Sure, government has a role in trying to balance things up and fix market failures etc etc, but this notion that unless the government serves up an alternative on a silver platter that people will just keep doing exactly what they’ve always been doing seems … not a valid assumption to me.

Guytaur, unfortunately the more you ‘open up’ a party’s debate processes to the public the more you force real division out of the party’s democratic arena and into the backrooms. Party conferences open to the press are orchestrated, neutered events, like parliament. The real meaty debates are rightly had off camera.

There are many party members who don’t declare as such when they run for local government and instead pose as independents.

That just reinforces what I was trying to say. You suggested that not pushing heavily into local government might have been a factor in the Democrats eventual failure as a party, but the experience I have had is that if there is party association with candidates at local government level it is weak and incidental, although I realize that that varies significantly by region/council. That just suggests to me that parties inserting themselves overtly at local government level is not necessarily helpful to either getting councillors elected or to promoting the party – otherwise there would be a lot more overt ALP/LNP activity at local government level.

@18 – Lamming, making a tool of himself again? Never! I still remember when he got involved in a meme thread (captioned image for those not up on their Intarwebz-speek) and was roundly called an idiot with no understanding of what his constituents go through.

As a Greens Member and one who was once involved with policy discussions and remain on the mailing list, I can confirm that I am spammed daily with long email conversations and discussions over Greens Policy. The debate goes on… and on… and on.

There’s nothing unusual about the Greens not agreeing with each other.

I disagree with large amounts of their policy, but I still vote for them because they fit my agenda largely.

The Greens are more popular than the Democrats ever were and they represent a broader slice of the population than the Dems. If you like they have a niche, which seems to me what the Democrats lacked. I mean whom did the Democrats really represent? The Greens have a much better ‘market’ for votes and have a much clearer ‘brand’. They won’t be going away anytime soon.

I am not in a position to comment in detail other than to say that the views you are putting about elected reps, their mission statements, criminal offences associated with their voting, loyalty to electorate as first priority, etc etc to be a load of unmitigated crap.

Let me distance myself as far as I can from the criminal offense stuff I don’t want to touch that. But as a voter I will vote liberal, national, green, labor or pup if I think they are going to put their electorate first and I don’t think the opponent will.

I also knew a member of parliament very well and handed out HTV’s for them.

They were a labor member of Parliament.

One the Election Day I had a number of people say to me ‘I’ve never ever voted labor before in my life but I’m going to vote for x today- they do great things for their electorate – good on you for helping out.’

It felt good on the day but I didn’t take it too seriously until a few years later after the member had retired and one of those people who had openly told me he was voting labor that day showed up as Chief of Staff for a Liberal Minister and another as a liberal candidate.

I also got to know one of the members staff members who complained that the member did their electorate work so well people in other electorates started to write to my member because they’d actually get stuff done. I don’t think this member crossed the floor too often or at all but people knew they put the electorate first.

It is the way it should be. Our current labor member can’t find the frigging electorate without assistance and if they had a decent hard working opponent could not count on my vote.

William, how are you incorporating Newspoll results into the PUP primary? Is it simply a matter of working back from the 2PP based on last election? Because that would seem mathematically possible but would introduce some significant rounding errors given PUP is fluctuating between 5 and 7% at the moment – a 0.5 error is quite substantial.

Re re Greens and Dems – it’s been said before but the Dems were susceptible because they had no clear platform and thus no reliable base. The Greens will be able to rely on a core primary vote of at least 7-8% for as long as climate change is an issue (ie forever). It increases above that whenever public opinion favours strong action on climate change (as it is starting to now once again), when the government has no credible climate policy (ie now) and whenever the bastardry toward asylum seekers and refugees goes above the normal level.

It would take a serious crisis for the vote to fall below the core base of 2013. A bit of leadership tension and some game playing by those Senators who enjoyed student politics are not a serious crisis.

It think too strong party loyalty is the greatest weakness in our democracy. I think my mp should always vote for the electorate ahead of her party and there should be a mechanism to removed members who vote for party ahead of electorate.
So government is all about pork barrelling?
Sorry, if I am voting to elect a National Govt, I want it to act in the national interest ahead of parochial concerns. Ditto for State Govts.

Bemused I know where you are coming from and pork barreling is definitely a problem – except it happens now and always has but most of the pork is directed to interest groups rather than electorates. And voters deserve much much better.

Good to see you and zoom both defending the machine and status quo all we need is Adam to join you!

I sometimes agree with and sometimes disagree with Psephos and zoomster. But I always respect them both.

Same goes for you.

National Govts are there to run national programs and to fund the states. If my electorate is not the optimal location for a piece of Federal infrastructure, then I would not want my local member to argue otherwise. That just degenerates into a whole series of sub-optimal decisions driven by pork barrelling and we are all the poorer for it.

The Greens are more popular than the Democrats ever were and they represent a broader slice of the population than the Dems. If you like they have a niche, which seems to me what the Democrats lacked.

That’s not making a lot of sense. They have a niche, but that gives them a ‘broader slice of the population’?

I agree the Greens have a niche. They have a clear brand and thus they do have a firmer footing than the Democrats did. The Greens aren’t going away.

However, I would argue that the Democrats had a ‘broader slice of the population’ supporting them – it just turned out to be more of a general protest vote that drifted away when there were alternatives and the Democrat brand had been damaged.

Well I didn’t suggest it but I did read it somewhere. I can’t vouch for it as I wasn’t as politically aware when the Democrats were popular. Outside of the 3 level of governments, was there a level of grassroots involvements coming from the Democrats? E.g. Labor protests on the budget, Greens protests against EW tunnel, etc.

And I also feel the Greens are clearly Centre-left of the spectrum and is able to distance itself from the other majors, while the Democrats were more centrist and could be chipped away either sides by Labor and the Libs.

“That’s not making a lot of sense. They have a niche, but that gives them a ‘broader slice of the population’?”

I am using ‘niche’ like an ecological niche. So that doesn’t mean it is small, just that it is a niche that they occupy and that they are well-equipped for it. The ‘niche’ comment is an analogy for the Greens as a living entity.

I didn’t mean (or say) that having a niche MEANT they represented a broader slice.

I, personally, believe the Greens do represent a broader portion of society than the Democrats. I have no idea who they were representing.

National Govts are there to run national programs and to fund the states. If my electorate is not the optimal location for a piece of Federal infrastructure, then I would not want my local member to argue otherwise. That just degenerates into a whole series of sub-optimal decisions driven by pork barrelling and we are all the poorer for it.

I largely agree and don’t support pork barreling. But let me tell you if there are five areas that need a new school (or any genuinely needed infrastructure) neither labor or liberal are going to deliver those 5 in order of most urgent need first. If your member doesn’t put their electorate before the party and possibly before their personal advancement the risk is your school ends up 10th on the list of 5.

Perhaps it was foolish of me but ‘putting the electorate first’ doesn’t mean fighting for unneeded pork barreling or even advocating making bad decisions for other electorates. I really mean just understand the electorate and give it a fair go.

Perhaps an example would help at a local level I’m represented by 3 liberal local councillors (it was my old seat when I was a councillor although I didn’t have two fellow councillors). Those three councillors just supported an unfair levy (that isn’t imposed anywhere else in the city) on just my area so that other areas don’t have the burden of funding this infrastructure at the same time that kind of infrastructure is funded out of general rates everywhere else. They didn’t even oppose it. They wouldn’t put their electorate first.

I have never met a person with whom I agreed 100% on all issues nor a person who would agree with me similarly.
Ms fredex comes closest but even then we have long gentle discussions over some issues mutually agreeing in the end to disagree on some details and continuing to each have another think.
Unanimity is not only impossible but undesirable and diversity is a wonderful thing.

Astrobleme – right, so to judge the ‘breadth’ of Democrat support you’d actually have to have a look at who used to vote for the Democrats, and you don’t know who voted for the Democrats.

As a Democrat member I saw a very wide spectrum of views in both voters and members.

Of course that broad church approach has serious problems, and was undoubtedly one of the factors that destroyed the Democrats.

But I maintain that I think the people who voted for the Democrats back in the day when they had any significant voting support came from a broader spectrum of the population than support for the Greens, now, does.

That doesn’t mean that it’s superior or inferior or whatever, and clearly the Greens have ultimately been much more successful than the Democrats were.

WWP, it seems to me we should add representing a geographical area to the frequently contrary hats a politician is expected to wear. That’s not to say we don’t require/deserve such representation, simply that we are overloading the position of each politician with too many meanings.

It is a little odd that this should be the case given we have 3 levels of government per area.

One of the oldest and most basic of legal principles in our system is habeas corpus.

This is the “law” which prevents us from being taken away in the middle of the night, and locked up, the everyday event in corrupt countries. It is specifically about/against unlawful detention.

Typically those who breach Habeas Corpus as a matter of policy utilise secrecy as a major tool. Does that ring a bit familiar in the context of Morrison.

HC dates from the Magna Carta ie 700+ years ago.

Whilst Habeas Corpus can be legislated out of particular circumstances, and has been vis a vis Asylum Seekers, the principle and the ethical and moral underpinning of it remain as an essential pillar of democracies.

So, by the previous and current government Habeas Corpus is legislatively bypassed in the case of detention centres,firstly for on-shore detention, then for off -shore.

Now Abbott and Morrison have in the current situation (the 2 current vessels) pushed the envelope even further ie detaining and dealing with persons on the high seas and ignoring HC.

What’s next?

Morrison’s goons relocating to the beaches of Sri Lanka and detaining ASs as they attempt to leave. And then they could trawl beachside villages detaining anyone with a glint in their eye who might look like a potential AS!

This mob day by day are wrecking our society, piece by piece, across all areas of human behaviour. And the masses haven’t a clue what’s going on.

Don’t think for one moment that Habeas Corpus can’t and won’t be trashed for other demographies of Australian citizens if Abbott sees some political advantage to be gained by it.

a lot of things are ‘secret’ not from any nefarious intent but purely because no one would be particularly interested in making the information public.

For example, if I meet with a constituent, it’s not necessarily a ‘secret’ meeting, not is the information conveyed in that meeting ‘secret’ – but in practice, only I and other people in the room know what was discussed.

And this is the point I was trying to make – as a councillor, I had a whole range of conversations/interviews/discussions which other people simply couldn’t have.

I’m sure the same applies to parliamentarians. Meeting with constituents or even the representative/s of an interest group isn’t ‘secret’ – however, it provides the relevant MP with information which isn’t (necessarily) readily available to the general public.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.